“The last thing I remember was our train being stopped in the woods. OVERWATCH told me I was needed for questioning, so they locked me in one of those cold pods and stuck me on the next train to NOVA PROSPEKT. I can still see my WIFE watching me drift away. Now, here I am… Only things are not how I expected them to be. How long have I been unconscious? A few days? A WEEK? Something has gone HORRIBLY WRONG…”
UNION is set in the aftermath of Freeman’s blow at Nova Prospekt. ANTLIONS have broken in and run amok, the Combine forces lay decimated, but an unlikely alliance is forged between a lone surviving PRISONER and an escaped VORTIGAUNT. If they are to break free they will have to rely on one another for help.
- Title: Union
- File Name: hl2-ep2-sp-union.rar
- Size : 17.59Mb
- Author: Matt Glanville
- Date Released: 26 February 2008
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Click on the thumbnails below to open a medium size image.
With your cursor on the image, press and hold your left mouse button and move around the image. Use your mouse wheel to scroll in and out of the panoramic
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Click on the thumbnails below to open the video.
WARNING: The videos may contain spoilers.
Tags: Antlions, Combine Sniper, First Seen On PP, Hall Of Fame, Hunters, Medium, Panoramic Image, Short, Story, Video Walkthrough, Zombies, Zombines
Great mod, so good it’s too short. I loved the sniper episode. A few remarks:
My PC also crashes in the side tunnel, so there must be a bug there.
I got stuck in the boiler room. No idea what to do. I had to go “noclip” past the steel door to keep going, which isn’t very brilliant. Really didn’t got a clue. What is the way out? To me it’s the only flaw in the mod.
I also killed too many antlions before I figured out you just have to dodge’em and head for the lift. Basically same thing with the hunters, dodge, run, hide in the lift and let the Vort do all the fighting. Not a great way to play team.
To all the people experience a crash in the tunnel: did you press the button on the right immediately after going through the big gate the vortigaunt raises? This should keep the gate held open so the vort can come through with you. If you are leaving him there, this is the only thing I can think of that might cause the crash.
Bear in mind that you need to do this for all the Combine gates (the square ones with the white broken circle on them). After you go through, start looking for a terminal with a button you can press.
I saw those buttons and pressed em at some point before the vortigaunt raised the door nothing happened, so When I saw the vort and the door opened, I just assumed that that’s what needed to happen–nothing more.
There’s really no indication that you need to push the button, so it would be great if you ever update this, that you could somehow prevent the player from moving forward without pressing the button, or take it out altogether. I guess that’s also why I couldn’t get past the gate.
Hmm… I don’t know how you managed to press the buttons before the vort had raised the door as they are on the other side of the door.
I think I may make a future version with new voice acting, it would help so much in giving the player hints. It would be as simple as the player walking too far past the button and the vort shouting “Wait, you need to keep the door held open so I can proceed!” or something.
It would be too much work to take it out and redesign the puzzles, and also it wouldn’t make sense. If the vort could keep the doors held open on his own, why wouldn’t he have already escaped? It reinforces the fact that the player and the vort depend on each other.
[quote comment="150375"]To all the people experience a crash in the tunnel: did you press the button on the right immediately after going through the big gate the vortigaunt raises? This should keep the gate held open so the vort can come through with you. If you are leaving him there, this is the only thing I can think of that might cause the crash.
[/quote]I had not presses the button and left the vort behind. I went back, pressed the button and now no crashes
Well done mod.
Well done, but I have a few nitpicks.
While the Hunters were fun to fight, it wouldn’t be very realistic for them to be there. The Combine use Hunters for hunting targets in forested areas, so they wouldn’t be working as guards at Nova Prospect.
Also, the sniper part seemed unintuitive at times. I had a really hard time finding the path to the sniper right outside the fence. I would have also liked some sort of in-game preparation for that part, since Half-Life 2 trains us to throw grenades into sniper nests.
I would have also liked some sort of explanation for why the player has a protective suit. Including a little scene where the player picks up a combine vest or something would be helpful just for more storyline explanations. I would have also liked a better integration of the destruction of the internal areas of Nova Prospekt. While it can be explained that the player is in the outer regions and therefore mostly unaffected by the teleporter explosion, it would have been nice to see some sort of indication of that, like maybe scenes of desolation on security cameras or a dark storm cloud in the distance similar to that of the citadel explosion when the player makes it outside.
Although it was never explained, the idea behind the Hunters was that they were perhaps stationed at NP awaiting missions. When Gordon assaulted NP, they became trapped there.
When you say “right outside the fence” do you mean just after you get off the train track? Near the blue dumpsters? Fair point about the training, though the bars covering his post were meant to indicate that you cannot use that tactic here.
The HEV suit is really nothing more than a gameplay device. If I revise Union in the future I will consider replacing it with normal citizen hands.
As for the destruction, to be honest I didn’t really think about this until late in Union’s development (when it was too late). Personally, I did not interpret that scene in HL2 to indicate that the explosion had severely damaged the buildings. When Kleiner says “the blow you struck” I interpreted that as merely the fact that Gordon killed a lot of soldiers and messed things up a bit, not a literal blowing up of the facility.
What do others think? Was Nova Prospekt completely wrecked?
I always thought the explosion was substantial enough to destroy at least the depot (the inner section of the facility where the teleport was housed), if not the whole thing. And even if the outer areas of the prison were left untouched by the explosion, they had already been destroyed in the fighting or overrun with Antlions.
Update: I’ve written the first part of a post-mortem of Union. You can read it at my blog Figments and Pigments:
http://www.figmentsandpigments.cjb.net
If the adverts start to irritate you or cause you problems you can use this direct link:
http://figpig.blogspot.com
Thanks for the “commentary”; it always cool to see the thoughts behind everything.
“While the Hunters were fun to fight, it wouldn’t be very realistic for them to be there. The Combine use Hunters for hunting targets in forested areas, so they wouldn’t be working as guards at Nova Prospect.”
Where is this stated in EP2? I don’t recall any mention of the uses of the Hunters, beyond occasional Strider escorts (and that was a desperate time for the Combine, so it’s hard to tell whether that’s what is normally done), it sounds like some sort of fan surmising that makes it extremely hard for people to use new enemies (without falling back on the same themes as the actual game anyway). I guess the fact this is Nova Propekt, where they were not present before, does justify wondering a little though.
BTW Phillip, just recently I’ve been having a site problem; if I’m logged into my wordpress account here whenever I click “post comment” it does not post and insteads subscribes me to the post I’m on; I have to log out to post anything.
I am not entirely satisfied with this mod
It oozes technical excellence but unfortunately it’s missing the immersion – at least in my case – don’t know why and I can’t explain it, it’s just the way I feel about it. Everything looks nice and works great but I don’t feel involved. The finish is outstanding indeed and it gets you involved – right when the game ends 
Another complaint is that the fights felt uneven to me. WARNING: spoilers ahead! There are three major fights in this mod – the first with antlions, the hunters and the sniper. The sniper one is extremely well done, no problems there. However the first fight with antlions left me a bit puzzled. Seeing the infinite ammo boxes I was expecting the mother of all battles – and after noticing the layout of the place I decided to barricade one entrance to the corner room and move all the health packs there. My intention was to make a stand there until I run out of ammo then go the shotgun ammo box and get some more and hopefully kill everything with what I got after that. I was expecting at least 50-60 antlions and I was kinda dissapointed when I saw that it was what? 25? 30? A bit too easy I think.
Then comes the hunter battle – I killed the first two and was really surprised to see two more! After multiple tries I finally managed to kill all four and escaped in the elevator with 19 health points. Whew! This was a bit too hard compared to the antlion battle in my opinion.
Anyway this is all just nitpicking – Union is a great mod that could have been longer
– hoping to see more from the author in the future!
Heh, seems I had the opposite experience to you kalkin. Playing on difficult, I found the Antlion battle far too difficult because the Vortigaunt kept getting himself surrounded and killed, while I got through the Hunter battle on the first try. (though I took a beating, got knocked down to 40-something HP and exhausted most of my ammunition)
[quote comment="150889"]Heh, seems I had the opposite experience to you kalkin. Playing on difficult, I found the Antlion battle far too difficult because the Vortigaunt kept getting himself surrounded and killed, while I got through the Hunter battle on the first try. (though I took a beating, got knocked down to 40-something HP and exhausted most of my ammunition)[/quote]
Well then I guess this proves that the mod creator has gotten the battles right! The players get to experience them differently due probably to a difference in playstyle but the design is just right so I am retracting my complaint. And by the way I always play on normal difficulty level
My Review
Well this is the first map pack I have played for Episode 2 and was very interested to see what features were going to be utilized by the mapper. The game starts off with you escaping from Nova Prospekt as Joe Smith the friendly citizen the Combine was torturing.
You begin your escape after Freeman has made his way through and pick up his high school chum and the game starts. Immediately you are teamed up with a Vortigaunt. At this point, the only part of this game that is hard is towards the ending. You see, they suffer from a little disease and that’s called God Mode.
These things cannot die, or have the Epic Final Fantasy hit point level of 9999. This really makes it hard to die unless you are too lazy to slam the mouse button rapidity while having your shotgun out, which never seems to run low on ammo to chew up. Now, I understand this is supposed to be story-driven, but if the Story is driving, it forgot to get in the car and we are all still on the couch at home.
To me, this is just like any other map pack with a few new tricks. That being said, that’s allowed. We love trotting around and killing stuff or we wouldn’t play video games. Nothing really story driven happens throughout the maps which is really disappointing. To couple with that, your side kick thinks you’re Freeman.
I am aware in the read-me is states it was a one man project and he didn’t do the voices himself, but at the same time, it’s not that hard to grab a friend by the ears and sit him down in front of a microphone and threaten to kill him unless he says a few lines.
Summary
I really don’t have too much else to say since it was only two maps long, with a frustrating sniper at the end which adds nothing to gameplay and only tried my patience. While the map design was good and there was nothing out or place or wrong, it still comes off as being mediocre. Try it if you are a map junkie.
Recommendation
[quote post="3576"]it’s not that hard to grab a friend by the ears and sit him down in front of a microphone and threaten to kill him unless he says a few lines.[/quote]
Wanna bet?
Very good mod indeed
Notes of interest:
SPOILERS
- The fact that there were no combine soldiers to fight gave the mod a really nice atmosphere of desolation and nostalgia
The one and only combine guy was then used to maximum (along with the fact that he wasted my face with surprising shotgun defense maneuver). something like the last king of the hill..
- The moment of etting outside was very well executed – the distant sound of thumper, the rain and the scene setting were all Valve quality.
- Very nice detail with the sniper and exploding barrels. At least I hope it was planned
- The ending, while nice and epic, felt a bit forced. Like you wanted to recreate an empathic moment of Hl2Ep2 outro (same music used too), but this one wasn’t so surprising and seemed a little unnecessary. The idea was ok (I love bad endings) as well as the chilling sinister slow motion, just the reason of it all was IMHO too purposive.
- Hunters and the elevator scene was superb.
This map is very good. I hope there will be a sequel. This map is the best and i recommand it to all!
Bugged for me the vort did not follow me to the first lift so got killed everytime!! Gave up after that…..average
[quote comment="151362"]Bugged for me the vort did not follow me to the first lift so got killed everytime!! Gave up after that…..average
[/quote]
Check the readme, you’ve missed a vital part of the game. Every time the Vortigaunt opens a gate you need to press a button to keep it held open. You must have missed the button to allow him to follow you.
This is something I’m re-considering as a few people missed this and made the game uncompletable.
Well, ya know, you could stop the player if he doesn’t push the button. A combine shieldwall/forecefield that the button also turns off, or something to that effect.
Yeah, I am going to rework it I think. I basically didn’t want to bottleneck the player too much. The main gate itself is already enough in my opinion but it seems I’ll have to take further action to prevent people breaking the game.
This one was great level-design-wise (the sniper area is gorgeous)… it just suffered from a few gameplay issues. One thing that always jumps out at me about user-made levels is how obvious the big battles are. The prison room towards the beginning where antlions swarm you is a good example: as much fun as it was, I saw it coming a mile away. It’s really nice when big battles just hit you out of nowhere, as infrequent as this is. The second issue was, as noted in the pseudo-satire above, that you at one point fight a formidable number of Hunters in an area that isn’t terribly well-suited to fighting Hunters, with weapons that aren’t well-suited to fighting hunters. If the hunters had been mixed in with soldiers, then the battle wouldn’t have been as overwhelming… but then, I did kind of like that you didn’t fight against any combine soldiers in the game. Still, that battle ought to be reworked a bit. Three final, nitpicky criticisms: (1) it is a bit odd that the vort keeps on calling you Freeman, (2) the mod wasn’t long enough to where you really got to bond with the vortigaunt (like you do with Alyx in Ep1), so the ending didn’t have a heavy an impact as it could have, and (3) not being able to pick up that schweet sniper rifle was really frustrating. Mounting it could solve that last one.
I totally agree with all the positive comments, this is slick and very well executed, there are some challenging parts, nicely balanced with combat and set design. I was definitely hungry for more when I got to the end!I can’t wait to see what you come up with next, there has to be a next,right….?
I thuroughly enjoyed this mod. the whole thing was very well done. It had very detailed enviorments and yet it still had the feel of a mod to it, which i like. The antlion bit felt like it was a little to long to me, but that was my only complant. The point of that area was to let the player get ready for that onslaut. The fight with the hunters was the first time i have ever had a challenge facing of against them, they were always so easily dispatched with the right weapon, so pumping them full of lead in a cramped coridor while taking cover around the bend was intense and left me with 30 health feeling very satisfied.
Great fun man, thank you! Me and my kid are having a great time with this map and others. Good work! Thanks again!
Yeah this mod looks, and plays awesome!
The rating image speak for itself.
also ahd that strange bug that crashed my system and if i went around it then the antlions didn´t come. skip this with noclip. great maps, but that left a bitter taste.
And for everyone with that crash:
In the middle of the screen is some kind of “invisible error message” behind the “gamelayer”, try clicking around until you find the “ok”. or what i did first: go in “standby”-mode. If i push the power button my pc goes to standby, after waking it up again the “gamelayer” is gone and you can see the error message.
[quote post="3576"]also ahd that strange bug that crashed my system and if i went around it then the antlions didn´t come. skip this with noclip. great maps, but that left a bitter taste.[/quote]
Not sure if you saw the solution, but it is quite simple. You need to press a button right near the Vortigaunt (other side of the gate). It is explained in the readme file. Glad you liked it all the same though.
Hey people. For anyone who’s interested there’s a quick news update with images on my blog: http://figpig.blogspot.com/
I loved this mod. Excellently designed levels, fun gameplay between the Vortigaunt and the player, and even a genuine scare. This is good stuff.
SPOILERS
Awash in a sea of countless Nova Prospekt maps, Union stands out with its character interaction, great lighting and architecture, and its nifty gimmick. Most of the puzzles are based on the idea that you need to clear the way for the Vortigaunt to use a machine to open a door. Just as Valve does, the mechanic is introduced early on in a simple context and layer upon layer of complexity is added thereafter. It’s a simple but effective mechanic. I have to admit, the battle with the Antlions in the “washing machine room” went on a bit long. But I liked the mix of Antlions and their acid-spitting cousins. You really got to appreciate the difference in strategy between the two enemies.
As I said, there is a genuine scare in the map and it comes from the Hunters. They way they are presented is superb. Fighting them in the confines of the prison really made me realize how tall and formidable they were as well.
You eventually get outside and encounter a sniper as rain pours down from above. Very dramatic. However, I also think this part was a bit too challenging. One, the road ahead just isn’t lit convincingly enough. There are times when I’d speed out and get shot, just to see if I was actually on the right track. Two, that part where you have to actually take cover behind the garbage bin props didn’t seem adequate.
That said, exacting revenge on the sniper was awesome and a nice twist on the typical grenade mechanic (I did chuck some grenades up there initially… metal bars or not, since that’s how the player is “trained” to kill the sniper). The author even installed a thoughtful little shortcut for getting back down.
We end on a somber note, with you escaping at the Vortigaunt’s expense. The ending was a bit abrupt. The melodramatic setup for this mod really doesn’t manifest itself anywhere – honestly not sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing since I thought it was a bit too melodramatic for my tastes.
Still, out of all the mods I’ve played, I had few bad things to note about this one. It really is an excellent mod. Don’t let the two-map length deceive you, there’s a lot going on here. You need to play this.
(As a side note, I had some goofy cubemap issue that I’ll just assume was something weird on my end… no idea)
If only this had been a couple of levels from the HL2 EP2 it may have made it worth the money I spent. These maps are better then any levels in the original EP2 which I thought were a bore for the most part. Union gives us a couple of maps packed with action and content, yes it’s tough in places but very enjoyable with great atmosphere built-up by some good use of sound effects. It’s hard to fault this one, so I am just not going to bother; it’s the best HL2 map/mod for some time and one I will play again and you should go play it now.
Honestly, I didn’t much care for this map in terms of gameplay. Most of it was too hard, even on easy I couldn’t make through the big antlion fight without cheating (and a lot at that!). The second map was better with Hunters which are fun enemies to fight against. The ending was good and the best part of the mod, though melodramatic for such a short map pack as another commenter said. Nice idea anyway, and not too often seen in maps.
In short: Fighting against antlions was too repetitive and hard. The second map was a bit short, but sweeter nonetheless. Mapping was flawless in design and implementation. I give it three stars.
That’s how map’s and mods should be done. Nice introduction to the map and a tweaked version of the vorti-gates. Perfect scripted secuences. Nice map layout. The player get a clear idea what he needs to be doing and how. The final area was pretty good and the ending /a thing that many maps/mods lack/ was a very nice touch.
I’ve updated this post to include the video walkthroughs. I’ve also updated the panoramic image and file downloads.
Thanks, Phillip!
Just played it and have to agree, it’s awesome!
The fights are quite basic except some highlights like that area where all the antlions come out or when the hunters appear.
Also the part with the sniper was very cool.
But the most interesting part, and why this is one of my personal favourites, is that you need your Vortigaunt friend to survive. Both of you know that you won’t make it outside alive if you just go on your own. They nearly never speak to each other, but the ligature between those two insterspecies becomes very big, I never felt so bound to an partner in HalfLife2, even not in the original half life 2. And then the end, where he dies, oh my god it’s so fantastic dramatic!
This thing could be an movie and is still awesome to play too.
I’m getting close to something I’ve wanted to do since Union’s initial release over a year ago, and that is to create an updated version with some new additions and changes. This project (affectionately called ReUnion) will feature full custom voice acting courtesy of Chris and Anne Fox to allow our Vortigaunt companion to breathe new life into the story, as well as numerous graphical upgrades and changes to gameplay, taking on board the valuable feedback I have received from players. I aim to have all this conveniantly packaged as a fully-fledged mod (rather than individual maps) which enables a few other nifty little features.
The changes to this early corridor imply that Nova Prospekt is larger than the accessible areas, and that it is falling into significant disrepair. These little touches will combine to create a richer experience for the player and reveal more backstory.
If you were curious about the background of Union’s protagonist, or where he might be headed after it ends, be sure to check out ReUnion when it’s finished. There’s no set release date yet, but watch this space for any updates.